Dance Games

August 21, 2017

I recently had a request to teach 1910s-era dance games, so I went digging through early twentieth-century books of cotillion (or "German") figures looking for some easy mixers that could be explained in a few sentences. I found two that fit the bill in Twentieth Century Cotillion Figures, by H. Layton Walker (Two Step Publishing Company, Buffalo, New York, 1912). That book is one of my favorite sources for the silliest and most extreme figures, but it has plenty of simpler ones as well.

Neither of these figures require any props or preparation, and they can be taught in moments on the dance floor, a practice actually recommended in the description of the second.

February 14, 2017

I return once more, in honor of Valentine's Day, to H. Layton Walker's delightful Twentieth Century Cotillion Figures (Two Step Publishing Company, Buffalo, New York, 1912), which is always guaranteed to provide me some interesting figures for imaginative dancers. Christmas was a bit disappointing, as holiday cotillion themes go. Valentine's Day seems much more promising, since both cotillions and valentines have the goal of matching up people and thus ought to combine nicely!

Starting from the top of an evening's program, Walker does provide a couple of useful suggestions for the grand march. I noted a few years ago that good leaders could get their marching dancers into formations such as the letters of the alphabet, or other geometric figures. Hearts, for example, lend themselves easily to being both created and escaped from by lines of dancers. Walker provided the diagrams at left for what he called a "Heart March Cotillion", though the shape is so basic that one hardly needs the help.

More usefully, he noted that the dancers are left on the wrong side of their partners (men on the right rather than the left) when marching out of the figure. That can be fixed by a standard kludge like having the partners cross each other when they meet, but Walker had a more elegant suggestion: simply repeat the figure going the opposite way up and down the room. I find the symmetry of that appealing, though I also foresee a problem with dancers overthinking things and deciding to change places with their partners anyway, just because they are uneasy at marching in reversed positions.

December 15, 2016

In honor of the freezing cold winter weather, I'm returning to H. Layton Walker's Twentieth Century Cotillion Figures (Two Step Publishing Company, Buffalo, New York, 1912) for a pair of cotillion figures themed around the then-current news of the attempts by explorers Robert Peary and Frederick Cook to be the first to reach the North Pole in 1908-1909. At the time Walker's book was written, there was a lively conflict going on between the two men as to who could claim the polar laurels. Since then, both accounts have been discredited to varying degrees, but it seems to still be something of an ongoing debate among scholars. There's an interesting account of the two expeditions and the contemporary debate at the Smithsonian Magazine website, which I recommend for anyone wanting more historical perspective.

What interests me about these figures, along with generally appreciating ballroom silliness, is how, as with Admiral Dewey and the Spanish-American War, current events were turned into ballroom party games. It's also worth noting for general timeline purposes that, in a book published in 1912, so many of the figures specify the use of the two-step, which was then on the verge of being swept away by the new dances of the 1910s.

October 27, 2016

Final cotillion figure for the month! Boarding House straddles the line between comedy and horror, making it perfect for Halloween. Along with being probably the single weirdest cotillion figure I've ever seen, which is saying a lot, it's also the most elaborate, requiring the construction of a special trick table along with props and costumes for some of the dancers. The figure is taken from St. Louis dancing master Jacob Mahler's 1900 compilation Original Cotillion Figures, in which it was attributed to Brooklyn dancing master William Pitt Rivers. After reading through this figure, I'm not sure I'd have wanted to have him as my dancing master!

I'll include the full original description below, but since it is rather lengthy, I'll start with the requirements and process for the figure.

October 24, 2016

The description of the Red Ear Party, or Harvest Home Party, appears in Emily Rose Burt's Entertaining Made Easy(New York, 1919). It was not a full-scale fancy dress ball, but an autumn/harvest-themed ball put on by, according to the book, a group of high school seniors as the opening event of their final year. Along with normal dancing of the era, it featured a series of novelty dances which were effectively low-key cotillions. Did the event really take place or was it imagined by Ms. Burt just for the book? Hard to say. But I'm impressed with the imagination and industry either displayed by the actual students or expected by Ms. Burt to be achievable by high school kids. I wish my teenage school dances had been like this!

The red ear of the title was not a body part but an ear of corn. The significance is said to go back to a colonial tradition in which whoever found the red ear at a corn husking party would get to kiss the girl of his choice. (You can see an example of one red ear among a lot of normal ones here.) In this case, finding the (faked) red ear was used to select a "queen" for the party.

Following this theme, the invitations read:

“Oh, this time o' the year You'll recall the red ear (It will never go out o' date); So the members of "twenty" Have planned fun a-plenty At a regular Harvest Home fête— You're invited!”

The decorations were autumn-themed (leaves, ears of corn, red and orange balloons and lanterns, etc.), the dance cards were shaped like red ears of corn, and the light supper "consisted merely of peach ice cream with sugared popcorn on top, served on grape leaves, nut macaroons, tiny pumpkin tarts and fruit punch.”

The real area of interest for me, of course, was the dancing, and how a series of mini-cotillions ("novelty dances") could be adapted to a particular event and worked into a normal dance program of the late 1910s, even by a group of teenagers with modest resources.

October 17, 2016

Coming back to cotillion figures, and sliding even further down the weirdness scale, here's a figure that combines playing doctor and still more wacky costumes! The source, once again, is the ever-delightful Twentieth Century Cotillion Figures by H. Layton Walker (Two Step Publishing Company, Buffalo, New York, 1912).

Like the Garden Figure and Stocking Auction figures, Sanitarium is a partner-choosing mixer, but with a much more elaborate setup. Here's Walker's description:

SANITARIUMWig and mask, and stethoscope are the properties that are given the Doctor in this game. The Doctor retires to a side room. Couples who are dancing are signaled to stop and the gentlemen retire to the side of room and ladies step to opposite side of room. A few remarks are made that the place has been quarantined and the health authorities insist on a medical examination of all the guests should be made while the Doctor is entering the hall. He proceeds at once to examine the ladies as to their health. With his stethoscope he taps the first lady on her back, holds his stethoscope to his ear and the other end to her back as if to test her lungs. This done he will write out a prescription (these prescriptions are all in printed form with twelve different kinds of medicine) which he gives to the patient. She at once proceeds to the side room, where the gentlemen have retired and which door is now labeled "Drug Store." A drug clerk who may be one of the guests aside from the couples up will take the prescription, beckon the lady to sit down at one side while the prescription is being filled. She waits a moment, then her bottle marches in life size. These bottles and boxes are all made of Japanese paper and are worn by men. The boxes and bottles are all labeled with medicines which they contain. There will be no trouble finding partners as the ladies will receive a coupon which is torn from the the original coupon.

Whew!

First, let's pause and visualize a group of gentlemen dancing in giant paper pill-bottle costumes. Got that image? Isn't it great?

Okay, moving on. The props required for Sanitarium are:

for the doctor: a wig, mask, and stethoscope, plus a pen or pencil to write prescriptions with

twelve (or however many) human-sized pill-bottle or pill-box costumes made of Japanese paper

prescription forms which match the labels on the pill-bottle/box costumes

possibly some sort of costume for the drug clerk

I'm not sure what sort of wig a doctor ought to wear, but the real challenge will be making human-sized pill-bottle/box costumes out of paper that are sturdy enough to handle being put on in a hurry and then danced in. It would be nice to be able to purchase these at a cotillion prop supply store, but even a century ago I suspect these were a home-construction project.

Unlike the previous two, this description spells out the full pattern of this sort of figure:

a group of couples are selected and dance

they separate

they are remixed and dance again with new partners

How the remixing works is explained adequately in the original instructions.

The dancers need to enjoy a bit of role-playing, with the gentleman playing the doctor having to be particularly good, since he has to perform the schtick twelve (or however many) times in a row. Keep in mind that Sanitarium must be entertaining to watch as well as do, since even if every single couple at the cotillion is involved, there is still going to be a lot of time during which the ladies are sitting and watching the individual "examinations". The dancers need to ham it up a bit or things will drag horribly. If the dancers aren't game for that sort of improvisational comedy, don't select this figure.

Also: I'm not sure whether it's intended, but the exams provide an opportunity for ostentatious flirtation, as long as it doesn't cross the line. Stethoscopes on backs, not chests!

On a more practical note, the description is a bit confused about exactly how many side rooms are required (if the lady is sitting in the side room, where do the gentlemen march in from?), but it would be easy enough to have the doctor and the male pill-bottles all get into costume in a single separate room and have the drug store with its clerk and pill-bottle pickup in a corner of the ballroom. That way all the guests would get the full enjoyment of seeing each gentlemen march into the room in all his pharmaceutically-costumed glory!

October 06, 2016

Moving on from fancy dress balls, here are a pair of cotillion figures which actually involve some degree of costuming, at least for loose definitions of the concept. Both figures are taken from H. Layton Walker's Twentieth Century Cotillion Figures (Two Step Publishing Company, Buffalo, New York, 1912), source of an endless supply of delightfullyweird figures. There are actually Halloween-themed figures in Walker's book, but they're quite dull by comparison with these two!

Both figures are simple mixers, with either the ladies or the gentlemen selecting partners from a group of opposite-sex dancers. Dozens of figures of this sort were published over the years, but these two take the concept to a whole new level by having the dancers put on some sort of silly costume during the ball itself, presumably right over their normal evening dress.

You wouldn't actually want to use figures like these at a fancy dress ball, where the dancers are already in masquerade-type costumes, but they would add some interesting variety at a ball or cotillion evening with dancers in normal 1910s eveningwear.

At the time, influenced by my reconstruction of the Star figure in the Royal Scotch Quadrilles, I interpreted the cotillion figure as a different way of describing the same figure. But I recently came across the same late Star figure again in a 1912 cotillion manual, and looking at it, I realized there was another way to interpret it.

July 28, 2016

As an antidote to the enervating heat wave which has descended on New England this week, I'm ending the month as I began it, with ballroom silliness that make Fair Light of Liberty look positively dull. Here's another pair of cotillion figures, in the dance-party-game sense of cotillion, taken from H. Layton Walker's Twentieth Century Cotillion Figures (Two Step Publishing Company, Buffalo, New York, 1912). They are both prop-intensive and a little bit, ah, weirder than most. But what could be better for a summer ball than wholesome outdoor things like roses and hooples?

Despite the complexity of the setups and props, the directions for each figure are relatively straightforward. I'm providing them word-for-word below with my own commentary interspersed, because these directions just demand it.

July 04, 2016

"Fair Light of Liberty" is taken from H. Layton Walker's Twentieth Century Cotillion Figures, published by Two Step Publishing Company in Buffalo, New York, in 1912. Walker was, by 1912, the editor of a monthly dance journal, The Two Step, started by H. N. Grant in 1890.

Figures like this were usually danced as part of a cotillion (or "German") at the end of a ball or sometimes as an entirely separate event. This usage of "cotillion" is distinct from the eighteenth-century square dance that was ancestral to the quadrille and modern square dancing. Cotillion figures often involved a mixer element, props, and some sort of silliness. "Fair Light of Liberty" has all three!

Here's the original description:

Eight couples up and dance. At a signal the eight ladies stand at sides of hall at eight different places, that is one at each corner and one between the space from corner to corner. The leader then gives a lighted candle to each lady which she holds high. The eight gentlemen partners each select another gentleman and the sixteen men arrange themselves in a ring at center. The leader has previously numbered the ladies from one to eight and has placed into envelopes two cards of each number and the gentlemen draw. At a signal they dance around the left, hands joined in a ring, and at another signal run for station indicated on card they have drawn, and the first of the two who are to run to that special corner and blow out light first dances with the fair "light house." Eight gentlemen are left, they dance with each other.

This follows the general format of such figures: couples dance, split up, play some sort of game, and then dance again in new combinations. The instructions are a bit light on the practical details, so here's a detailed guide to how I would interpret and apply them:

the April, 1898, issue of The Director, a dance magazine edited by Maine dancing master, author, and enthusiastic professional organizer M. B. Gilbert. Gilbert is best known today as the author of the 1890 tome Round Dancing, but for a few months he also managed to publish The Director. It didn't last. I suspect he wrote most of its contents himself.

the 1899 edition of the Fashionable Quadrille Call Book and Guide to Etiquette by B. Coanacher, an earlier edition of which is online at the Library of Congress. This edition has a cover proclaiming it Clendenen's Quadrille Book and Guide to Etiquette.

Here's the original language of the figure as it appears in each:

Charge of the Light BrigadeMusic: --- Two-Step--- Couples Up. Sig. Each lady select another lady. Each gentlemen [sic] select another gentleman. The ladies form a circle in the centre of the room; the gentlemen form a circle outside the ladies. The gentlemen raise their hands, the ladies stepping back underneath the up-raised hands which should be lowered, forming what is known as the basket. The basket thus formed should be divided in halves, each half retiring one to the head and the other to the foot of the room.Sig. Gentlemen raise their hands, ladies pass from under and rush to the opposite side of the room, taking as partners the gentlemen opposite them. -- M. B. Gilbert, editor. The Director, Vol. 1, No. 5., April 1898 (Portland, Maine).

Charge of the Light BrigadeCouples up; signal, each lady selects another lady each gentleman selects another gentleman; the ladies form circle in centre of the room, the gentlemen form circle outside the ladies, the gentlemen raise their hands, the ladies stepping back under the upraised hands which should be lowered, forming what is known as a basket; the basket thus formed should be divided in halves, each half retiring; one to the head and the other to the foot of the room, taking as partners the gentleman opposite them. -- B. Coanacher. Clendenen's Quadrille Book and Guide to Etiquette / Fashionable Quadrille Call Book and Guide to Etiquette (Chicago, 1899)

February 02, 2015

A few months back I discussed a short piece fromHarper's Bazaar naming popular dances for the winter of 1898-1899. In that piece, the "Dewey" cotillion figure, named after the famous admiral, was mentioned. At the time I had no source for this figure and instead described a similar confetti-throwing figure. Since then, I've unexpectedly come across a description in the 1899 edition of the Fashionable Quadrille Call Book and Guide to Etiquette by B. Coanacher. (An earlier edition is online at the Library of Congress.) The 1899 edition has a new cover proclaiming it Clendenen's Quadrille Book and Guide to Etiquette.

F. Leslie Clendenen was a St. Louis-based dancing master and author of at least one actual dance manual, but he is most remembered today as the editor of the 1914 compilation Dance Mad. It's not clear to me whether he actually wrote or edited any of this book or whether the publisher just slapped on a cover with a prominent name to improve sales. The Clendenen cover also appears on a 1917 edition which adds still more dances and some sheet music as well.

Here's the description:

The "Dewey" Figure

will be very popular, the theme is the Bombardment of Manila, and naturally calls for quite a display of patriotic colors. The dancers are arranged in parallel columns and at a signal march, moving in lines executing a strategic play at battle. Finally they line up in two imposing columns, the women on one side, men on the other. On the floor is the stock of ammunition, consisting of red, white and blue paper hearts. At the signal, the bombardment begins, and the combatants seize the hearts and hurl them at their adversaries. The fun increases as the battle waxes hot and the colored hearts burst and the colored paper contents are sent fluttering about. In the end, there is a complete capitulation and the partners waltz off together.

Once again we're back to the patriotic fervor engendered by the Spanish-American War, as discussed in my earlier post. The props used are more along the lines of those used in the French figure Les Boules de Neige (Snowballs), with paper hearts full of confetti made to burst on impact. It is somewhat more practical than Battle Confetti in not having the dancers end in a circle and not requiring mysterious strings crossing the ballroom. As with other confetti figures, it's best done when there is a quiet cleanup crew on hand with brooms!

The "parallel columns" and "strategic play" are vague enough for some fun to be had if the columns (two, women and men? or more?) are provided with imaginative "generals". It's not really clear whether the bombardment is meant, as in Snowballs, to select partners by whom one hits or whether each is bombarding the person who is directly across in the opposing column and thus destined to become their partner. Or possibly the dancers just have a grand old time randomly covering each other in confetti before finding their original partners. Though the waltz is specified for the final dance, there's no reason a polka or two-step could not be used instead, unless the entire cotillion is waltz-only.

"Dewey" is also like Snowballs (and Battle Confetti) in that it is usable by large numbers of dancers. Indeed, the description suggests that it might be a "general figure" meant for all the participants in the cotillion.

January 26, 2015

In honor of tonight's incoming blizzard, and because I've been thinking lately about cotillion figures that scale up well for large groups, let's talk about Les Boules de Neige. For those who don't speak French, that would be...The Snowballs!

December 18, 2014

I've written previously about Paul Jones mixers in answer to a question about their origin, so I was quite amused to find the editors of The Dancing Times expressing their bafflement about the dance all the way back in the issue for March, 1919:

Here is the programme of music played by Alfred Delmonte's Jazz Band at the Victory Ball held at the Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool, on Thursday, February 6th. We are curious to know what exactly is a "Paul Jones," which figures twice upon the programme...

The Dancing Times was a British journal which covered both stage (ballet) and ballroom dancing. Its editors may have been in the dark about the Paul Jones, but their subscribers were happy to fill them in.

October 15, 2014

One hundred and sixteen years ago today, the magazine Harper's Bazaar published a brief blurb predicting fashionable dances for the winter would be of "military tone", no doubt influenced by the burst of patriotic fervor occasioned by the brief Spanish-American War, which by the autumn of 1898 had moved into peace negotiations. The article gives a quick peek at what dances interested Americans (or, at least, American dancing masters) in the second-to-last winter of the nineteenth century.

August 11, 2014

David Millstone of the Square Dance History Project sent me a query in email about how the name "Paul Jones", after the naval hero of the American Revolution, came to be attached to a late nineteenth century song and then a twentieth-century mixer dance. I can't give a precise answer to David's question, but I can offer some background and informed speculation while meandering through a quick survey of some of the dances given the "Paul Jones" name.

The tl;dr version is: just because two things in dance or music have the same name doesn't mean they necessarily have any relationship whatsoever.

July 03, 2014

At the turning of the twentieth century, St. Louis dancing master Jacob Mahler contacted his colleagues across the United States to assemble a set of original cotillion figures -- not in the sense of the 18th-century French square dance, but in that of the party-games-with-dancing, some quite silly, which by the end of the nineteenth century had metastasized into events of their own, separate from formal balls. Using these figures, Mahler assembled a small handbook: Original Cotillion Figures (St. Louis, 1900). The very first figure given, courtesy of Walter L. Curtis of Utica, New York, was called "Stars and Stripes" and seems particularly timely as America celebrates Independence Day.

This is a geometric figure with a mixer element rather than a silly one, but it is a "property" figure, meaning that it requires props, in this case small American flags. It's not clear exactly how many are used; it could be either one per dancer or one per couple. If one per couple, the conductor of the cotillion should decide which gender retains the flag when the couples separate and reunite in different pairs.

The original figure is for thirty-two dancers. I'll go ahead and describe the figure for thirty-two, but the number of dancers could be adjusted, provided it remains divisible by four. The music should be John Philip Sousa's famous march, "The Stars and Stripes Forever". Sheet music and recordings of this piece are easy to find. The base couple dance for this figure is the two-step.

1. Eight couples, having acquired their flags, two-step around the room.

2. At the conductor's signal, they separate and each seek another partner, with whom they continue to two-step.

3. At the next signal, four couples form a column of couples in each corner of the room.

4. At the next signal, the columns of couples march on the diagonal toward the center. When they meet, they separate, gentlemen turning left and ladies right at 45-degree angles, and march toward the walls side-by-side with a new partner.

5. Upon reaching the wall, take this new partner and two-step.

This really is a neat little figure. The dancers form a sort of asterisk, coming in to the center in the form of an "x" and going out to the wall in the form of a cross. If the couples arrange themselves suitably in the corners, each person dances with two or three different partners during the course of the figure.

One doesn't have to wait for Independence Day to do this figure, but it would certainly be extremely appropriate for a July ball or any event with a patriotic theme.

June 05, 2009

Mixer dances, where all the participants shift partners at intervals, are useful icebreakers at dance events. In A Complete Practical Guide to Modern Society Dancing (1903), Philadelphia dancing master Albert W. Newman offers a simple mixer for use with the then-fashionable two-step, asserting hopefully that

This dance is rapidly gaining popularity, as it is most enjoyable.

The dancers take partners and hold hands in a grand circle, with each gentleman standing to the left of his partner, and all circle to the left (clockwise). The dance leader calls out a number (3, 7, 12, etc.), and all the dancers face their partners and begin a grand chain, giving right hands to their partners and pulling by, left to the next, right to the next, left to the next, etc. As they move, they count people, starting with their partners as "one." When they reach the number called out by the leader, each takes ballroom position with that person and two-step until the leader gives a signal (typically a whistle), at which point all the dancers open up into a grand circle and once again circle to the left.

This sequence is repeated as many times as desired, with the leader calling a different number each time so that the dancers end up with new partners after each grand chain.

Newman suggests that the Round Two Step is not only a standalone mixer but also a suitable final figure for a German, or cotillion, a type of party involving a series of dance games.

This style of circle-and-chain mixer was later known as a Paul Jones, possibly after a piece of popular music. Similar mixers remain current in some living tradition dance forms today.

June 08, 2008

The star figure dates back at least to the Regency era (1810s), when Thomas Wilson either composed it himself or found it common enough to include in his 1815 quadrille manual, though I have never seen it used in a quadrille other than Wilson's own Royal Scotch Quadrilles (1824). After a long absence, it reappeared in a late 1870s manual of cotillion figures (in the sense of party games or "Germans" rather than the 18th century French dance), intended to be used as part of a full evening of dance games. I have previously discussed the challenges in reconstructing this figure; the following is a practical description of how to dance it and how to use it as a German. See the end of this post for a video of dancers performing the Star.

The original source described the figure briefly:

VIII. STAR.Four ladies, right hand across, swing opposite
gentleman to center. Cross right hands, and half circling, swing their
partners to center. This is continued until the gentlemen again reach
their partners and dance. Anon., The German. How to give it. How to lead it. How to dance it. (Chicago, 1878)

In the 19th century, "swing" meant to turn your partner by the hand rather than the modern contra "buzz swing".

This is not the sort of figure that can be easily called "cold", but if dancers are taught the figure in advance, it makes a lovely addition to a ball or evening of cotillions.

April 23, 2008

Do you know of any documentation for a dance that is known to many as the "hat", "flower", "broom", "paddle", or "fan" dance?

It is described as having two lines of people (usually men in one line and ladies in the other). At the top of the set, one person holds one of the above items and two people of the opposite sex come and stand on either side of the person. He/she looks back & forth between them, hands the item to one of them and sashays or dances down the between the lines with the other person. Sometimes it's done with three chairs, sometimes with no chairs.

I know several dances with most of those names (all but paddle), none of them what Patricia had in mind. The dance she's describing is a variation on several of the mid-19th century cotillion figures also known as "Germans". These were not cotillions in the 18th-century sense of a chorus/verse-structured dance for couples in a square. Instead they were party games with dancing, some of which were quite silly and seem to us today more like children's games than pastimes for a formal ballroom. By the end of the 19th century, the role of these games had evolved from an amusing way to end a ball into the entire point of the evening, and hostesses vied to run the best "Favor-Germans", with elaborate trinkets as game props and party favors for their guests.